1. Connect With The World
Social networking helps you connect with customers all over the world – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all multinational social networks and through them you are able to hold personal conversations with many of your customers. New products can be posted along with suggestions and tips. Word of mouth can also be used on a multinational level, customers are more likely to trust the product if other people, including friends and loved ones, are speaking about it. It’s far more trustworthy to hear a product review from someone outside of the company.
2. Online reputation management
It allows you to monitor what other people and sites are saying about your products, brand and company.
3. Get Found by Potential Customers
Provides a way for potential customers to find you – If your search engine rankings aren’t very high and potential customers are having problems finding you they will be able to find you through social media. It will also help with branding your business and creating a brand identity. If you’re a fun, fresh business this can sometimes be hard to put across via a professional website, so start an Instagram account!
4. Give Your Customers a Say
Customers can play a more active role in the business – Instead of using focus groups, allow your customers to become involved in your business, let them offer suggestions, share their likes or dislikes of your products or services. You may find that they offer a suggestion for a product you hadn’t yet thought of. Social media also allows you to find out exactly what your customers actually want from you.
5. Respond to Negative Experiences
It’s a good way to explain yourself – Businesses are always afraid of negative comments they could receive on social media, in business it’s unlikely that everyone will have a fantastic experience with your company. However social media is a fantastic tool to explain yourself, send them an apologetic message, offer a chance to speak to you personally to try and rectify the problem. Social media is a two-way street and it offers a way to strategically manage crisis.
6. Show Your Expertise
Establish yourself as an expert in your field - Use any means; message boards, forums etc to answer any questions about your expert niche.
7. Cost-Effective Marketing
It’s so much cheaper than traditional marketing and advertising – Social media marketing costs a fraction of traditional advertising, the majority of social media outlets are free so the only thing they cost is time. Depending on how much of a presence you want on social media and how much time you have it may be advisable to hire someone to help with the social media, however this is still a small price to pay compared to how much a print ad would cost.
8. Build Links
It helps with search engines – Social media builds authoritative links back to your website!
9. Increase Your Site Traffic
Get great traffic – those who follow or like you on social media want to know more about your company and will therefore follow links onto your website.
10. Get Out There
Small businesses are able to compete with large companies – In the past vastly differing marketing and advertising budgets meant that smaller companies had no chance at competing with larger companies; with the right type of social media smaller companies can drive traffic and grow the business.